Demon Knights #15 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Isn’t it the worst feeling, waking up one day and realizing you’re young?

The Review: So we’ve come to the end of Cornell’s run on this title, and many more’s the pity, since it feels very much like he’s only scratched the surface of what he wanted to do with this particular set of characters.  It wasn’t even that long ago that they were first referred to by their collective identity as the Demon Knights, and here it seems they’re ready to never be identified as such ever again.

Of course, we know there’s no real danger of a permanent split, what with Robert Vendetti taking over for the indefinite future starting next month.  More than that, the strings of fate are wrapped tightly around the Knights, and despite their resistance, they’ll have no choice but to respond when the next crisis calls.  Horsewoman calls them fools for even attempting to thwart what’s been determined:

“To be offered hope—a destiny—and deny it immediately.  If you are still stupid enough to think you should be apart—then it is indeed the doom of humans—that they forget.”

Demon Knights #14 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Actually, Hell’s starting to look like a pretty peaceful place, comparatively.

The Review: Last month I felt a distinctly Secret Six sort of vibe from our cast of characters, which can only be a good thing, in my view.  Aside from the obvious connections (the presence of a Savage, romantic ambiguity, etc.), the Demon Knights share the same resignation to a loser’s fate as the Six, although both continue striving (fruitlessly, you might say) for better things to come.

Consider Jason reuniting with Xan.  Though overjoyed at finding each other and the prospect of ridding themselves of Etrigan forever, their happiness barely lasts a couple panels before bitter experience sets in.  Jason immediately recognizes that nothing so good can come that easily for them.  Xan agrees, but neatly describes the cautious optimism (the “desperate hope,” Jason calls it) the Knights all have: moving forward might at least give them “more options,” even if none of them are any good.

Demon Knights #7 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (pencillers), Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira (inkers), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Someone turn on the Braveheart soundtrack—it’s time to get hyped for war!

The Review: This title has so successfully gotten us caught up in its fantasy, humor, and tension that only sporadically do we remember that it’s essentially a war story, which means it entails a higher degree of moral spottiness than other kinds of tales.  Sure, casualties pop up in pretty much every bout of superheroics, but in a war, the mortality rate is not only impossible to overlook, it also speaks to the tragic pointlessness to it all.

Cornell has no intention of letting us forget that’s the kind of story we’re dealing with here.  The moment he had a young lass brutally beheaded in #3, you had to know he wasn’t just fooling around with dinosaurs in this series.  No matter how much action goes down—and in this issue, the action is nonstop—we never lose sight of the fact that ultimately, this arc determines not only the fate of the protagonists, but of a village of innocents who stand to lose absolutely everything.

So even though the Knights manage to come out the other end of the issue (barely) alive, with the Horde in full retreat, it is at best a hollow victory.  The price of this result is so bloodily high that you have to ask yourself if it wouldn’t have been more cost-beneficial to surrender early on.  The self-righteous can argue all they want that even in death, at least the villager kept their freedom, but for most of us, freedom comes a poor second to staying alive.

Worse still, the retreat of the Horde does not meant the defeat of the Horde.  The Questing Queen expresses amazement at the Knights’ feat only insofar as “They actually held us.”  Not that they sent the foundations of her army tumbling down, or struck a mortal blow to either her or Mordru’s life—only that they literally managed to keep the enemy from taking one last step to complete and utter triumph, and merely temporarily, at that.

Demon Knights #6 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (artists), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: It’s the ultimate showdown, featuring Amazon versus Triceratops!  Heck yeah.

The Review: Nothing quite like a battle against impossible odds to see what your characters are made of, huh?  These types of crises tend to accomplish two things: on the practical side, you get to see the limits of your heroes’ abilities, and often, on the deeper side, you also see the strength of their values tested.  Consequently, by the time the story’s over, you often have a very different set of characters than what you started out with, even if none of them perish.

But don’t expect the Demon Knights to have even that optimistic ending.  With the kind of dire peril they’re up against and a couple of them already halfway to death’s door, the chances of victory look pretty slim.  I suppose, though, in true fantasy fashion, that makes the glory of their fall all the greater.  Already you’ve seen some amazing action out of the Knights, and here they take it even further, using every trick and power at their disposal to hold off the Horde for just a moment longer.

Even more notable is how crucial a role the women play in making this possible.  I’m not just talking about Exoristos’ solo face-off with a dinosaur battalion, or Horsewoman attempting to charge past a flight of mechanical dragons, or even Xanadu’s quiet attempts to keep the team together.  Think about the person responsible for bringing this conflict in the first place: the Questing Queen.  And who’s her bitter rival?  Not Etrigan nor Al Jabr, but the female (probably) Shining Knight.  Whether Cornell intended it or not, he’s established a pretty lady-centric title here, all the more remarkable considering there are some big-name men in the mix, too.

It’s also the women who bear the tough decisions, as both Horsewoman and Xanadu have to grapple with making the necessary sacrifices to increase the village’s chances of survival.  What they end up choosing to do shows, I think, the kind of person we’ll be following from now on.  We tend to view Xanadu as a very means-ends type of actor, yet here she proves to be of sterner morals than we typically give her credit for, even when the rationale for the evil choice is actually on her side for once.  Horsewoman using the lives of her loyal animals as bait, on the other hand, is much more surprising, particularly since they’re essentially her means of living.

Demon Knights #5 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (artist), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: I know this isn’t Deal or No Deal, but…y’all should take that deal!

The Review: One of the few life lessons I’ve learned is that getting a group together is easy; getting them to stick together is not.  Even when you all start off with a common purpose, you’re bound to have friction on how to accomplish it, and that’s before you get to the conflict of personalities that inevitably arises.  For the supremely diverse Demon Knights, their risk of falling into petty or vicious squabbling is bound to be greater than the normal group of people.

Even now, at this dire hour when they may all perish by an invading horde, they can’t seem to stop themselves from squabbling.  The infighting among the women has especially gotten out of hand, as both Horsewoman and Xanadu take issue with Exoristos’ impulsive confidence.  Even Al Jabr, quietest and most rational of the gang, can’t stop himself from throwing a punch at one of his “comrades,” as Ex naively puts it.  Jason Blood can’t even keep from fighting himself.

For all that, this issue shows there is some quality common to them all that gives sense to them as a team.  What that quality is, however, is harder to pin down.  Still, it can’t be a coincidence that each one of them rejects the overtures of the Questing Queen and Mordru, though the two antagonists tempt them with their deepest desires.  Each of these offers reveal crucial clues as to the cast’s backgrounds.  We learn that Ex’s departure from Paradise Island came under some sketchy circumstances; Horsewoman’s attachment to her ride is as magical as it is personal; and Al Jabr has a spiritual side equal to his devotion to science.

Demon Knights #4 – Review

By: Paul Cornel (writer), Michael Choi & Diógenes Neves (pencillers), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Call me a Philistine, but are we really going through all this trouble for a cup?

The Review: If you ever read Cornell’s terrific run on Action Comics (or even his current work on Stormwatch), you know he’s capable not only of writing strong, likable characters, but far-reaching ideas and plots as well.  Whether we’re talking a godlike entity with the power to bring happiness throughout existence, or a man born at the start of the universe aging backwards so he can kill it in the end, Cornell has written some of the more interesting concepts in sci-fi.

So it was only a matter of time before he would bring that same kind of conceptual imagination to this fantasy tale he weaves for us now.  And he could have a no more potent focus for his creative powers than the most glorified and least understood motif of the sword-and-sorcery genre: the Holy Grail.

Cornell has Merlin himself explain the inexplicable nature of the Grail, in rapid-fire exclamations that has shades of Grant Morrison or Jonathan Hickman: “It is the cup our Lord drank from—that later drank his blood.  It is a way around the absolute.  To the numinous.  It is a record of everything.”  And just like a Morrison or Hickman monologue, it sounds quite impressive and important, but you can’t say you really understand anything further when it’s done.

Somewhat easier to take is the idea of Camelot as a recurring legend, the creation and destruction of which is a cycle that repeats itself through intermittent points in history.  This title opened on the end of one such iteration of Camelot, and this issue shows us the one from which Shining Knight hails, home to “Artus the Bear King” and “Myrddin, Thing of the Dung!”  We also get hints there may have been an even earlier version of Camelot (“All is lost.  Again.”), and there will be others in the future, as Merlin promises he will “[b]uild Camelot again.”

Demon Knights #3 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: The Horde is coming, the Horde is coming!

The Review: Works of fantasy have lent a kind of glamour to the period in which they take place.  Whether you’re talking Arthurian legend, Tolkien, or even World of Warcraft, their tales of knights and mages, stallions and dragons, chivalry and destiny have painted a gloss of excitement to what was actually one of the grimmest, least heartwarming times of our world’s history.  So in that sense, the fantasy genre truly lives up to its name.

For the first couple issues, this series seemed set to buy into this trend of scrubbing up the Middle Ages, only it went for the humorous route than epic.  After all, when you have a cliffhanger of flame-breathing, armored dinosaurs raging into a bar, you can’t expect this title to take itself that seriously.  Even here, where events show we’ve clearly entered a dark point in the plot, Cornell can’t resist getting in a few laughs here and there.

Savage is downright jokey about the whole matter, in a hopeless, let’s-make-merry-while-we-go-down kind of way.  Too long-lived and bearing too barbaric an origin to give a hoot about his choice of words, it’s no wonder he gets all the best lines.  In response to Horsewoman’s query about their next move against the Horde, he responds, “…all in all, I suspect the plan is: leave an exquisite corpse.  But I say—let’s at least give them a contest!”

Demon Knights #2 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: You know, the T-bones of T-Rexes make s’good eatin’.

The Review: Anyone who’s watched almost any episode of Seinfield  knows that when you have a group of characters that vibrant and diverse, you can be entertained watching them do pretty much nothing.  And that is pretty much what Seinfield fans did, episode after episode, for years.  While the show’s lack of sentimentality made it a bit harder for the characters to capture hearts, nevertheless, a lot of people became attached to the sheer force of their personalities.

Demon Knights has just about the most entertaining and engaging cast of all the new DC titles, with the added bonus of being set against a particularly fertile ground for imaginative storytelling.  If you have a comic whose opening includes a two-page splash of fire-breathing dinosaurs in armor, and Vandal Savage exclaiming with a manic gleam, “Excellent!  I haven’t eaten one of these in centuries!”—well, something’s going right for you, that’s for sure.